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Poison Ivy
Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley was a very promising botanist before an undisclosed accident turned her into the villainess Poison Ivy. Ridden by madness, she believed herself to be the mother of all plant life, until recently, when she had a very suspicious change of heart. Her best friend, Harley Quinn talked her into joining the Thunderbolts to keep her from going back to Arkham. Background Poison Ivy, aka Pamela Iseley, came from an abusive home. Her father beat her mother every night until one night he killed her, hiding the body in the garden. He was later arrested for her murder. Poison Ivy had a pretty normal life after that... until college, where met up with Doctor Jason Woodrue, who would later become known as the Floronic Man. He seduced her, convincing her to be a human test subject. The experiments were torturous. Twice, Pamela was nearly killed. In the end, she ended up in the hospital for six months, clinging to life, having been injected with a deadly plant-based poison, which would eventually cause her physiology to dramatically transform. While in the hospital, Doctor Jason Woodrue fled from the authorities. When she recovered, she tried to go back to her normal life. She went back to college, but she had psychological problems since the experiments, treating plants like they were her children in order to compensate for the fact that the experiments left her unable to ever have children of her own. She also had violent mood swings, often directed at men, because of her betrayal at the hands of a man -Dr. Woodrue. She eventually got a boyfriend, but killed him due to a minor argument, causing a fungal growth in his lungs when he was driving - resulting in a fatal car crash. After the incident with her boyfriend, she left Seattle to move to Gotham. She had tried to make a career for herself as a botanist, but her mental issues and inherent distrust of men (and even human beings in general) made this difficult. Over time her mental state broke down further as her psychosis manifested itself. She put on her first green color costume and re-fashioned herself as the criminal and eco-terrorist known as Poison Ivy. With her mastery over plants, toxins, and her kisses which could kill or mind control men due to pheremones, she was one of Batman's earlier and more dangerous members of his rogue gallery. Poisons Ivy's first act in her villainous career was to hold the city hostage, threatening to release suffocating spore unless her insane demands were met. Fortunately, Batman stopped her before she could release them into the air. Defeated, she ended up in Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, where she stayed in Arkham and received treatment. After escaping, Poison Ivy laid low for a while, falling off the grid. When she came out of hiding, she formulated a plan to use spores to brainwash rich business men. The plan was nearly successful, putting many of Gotham's Elite under her control and having them taken to a greenhouse. However, once again, Batman discovered the plot and stopped her. After being defeated by Batman yet again, Poison Ivy left Gotham, going to live on a barren island. With her powers, she turned it into beautiful garden. Without people there, and surrounded by plants, she was finally happy and lived there for quite some time... until a Gotham based company used the island to test weapons, destroying much of the plant-life there. Her calm shattered, she returned to Gotham City, targeting corporations and causing massive mayhem and destruction of the companies and people responsible for destroying her precious plants. Afterwards, she voluntarily turned herself in - to Batman. Poison Ivy was sent back to Arkham Asylum, where she was put in the same cell as Harley Quinn, who at the time was the sidekick and paramour of the most notorious of Gotham's criminals - the Joker. Surprisingly enough, Ivy and Harley created a genuine friendship. Ivy felt a special protectiveness and care for Harley that she never felt anyone aside from her plants, largely because of the abusive relationship which Harley was in with the Joker and how Harley was likely protective of Ivy as a friend (a natural fixation which Harley had to those who she loves). They remained friends whether in Arkham or when they had broken out, despite Poison Ivy and Joker despising one another. The friendship between Ivy and Harley grew, with Ivy constantly trying to push Harley to leave the Joker and the abusive relationship which she was in. It was a point which Ivy was particularly able to understand, since she herself had been abused by Dr. Woodrue, but unlike herself, Harley did not seem to have the will to leave the Clown Prince of Crime, or perhaps it was part of Harley's psychosis that she couldnt bring herself to leave him. Nevertheless, the two villainesses surprisingly became the best of friends, and Poison Ivy made her first connection to a person since she was changed. The two teamed up in crime, with Poison Ivy saving Harley from the Joker more than a few times. Harley returned the favor many times as well, including helping her escape from Batman and the GCPD a few times. During the merging of worlds, Poison Ivy found herself trapped in The Labyrinth. The Labyrinth showed her a world where there is only The Labyrinth, computer-like efficiency, no space for evolution or beauty, just patterns and perfectly well-thought fractal art. People don't mate, they clone. They don't love, they get check for genetic compatibility. There are no plants, just huge machines that work as the lungs of the world. When the Labyrinth was defeated and the universes merged, Ivy reflected on what happened to her, but still was involved in crimes. Until one night, when she was in a museum robbing it for a 'Sumatran Plant' - a rare plant which flowers once a century, and she was trapped by the GCPD, who were there to respond to a tripped alarm, and the Joker and his men, who were there to blow the place up. There was another person who had arrived as well to stop the Joker - Poison Ivy's friend, Harley Quinn, who had finally left the Joker largely from Ivy's influence, and had been ... recruited into the Suicide Squad, then the Thunderbirds - a group of ex-criminals who were now working for the government on impossible missions and crimefighting. Sorta. Harley saw Ivy, and instead of trying to arrest her, she helped Ivy escape, in order to get Ivy to be in the Thunderbirds with her. She tried to convince Ivy to be a hero with her, explaining how it was only because of Ivy's encouragement and friendship that she had the will to finally turn on and leave the Joker. And Harley wanted to save Ivy from a life of crime, being captured by Batman or the GCPD, and Arkham, in the same way Ivy saved Harley from a life with the Joker. Ivy, having reflected on her time in the Labyrinth, realized that maybe being a criminal was the wrong path for her, and if Harley could be a hero .... ish.... so could she. Instead of trying to destroy the world and replace it with plants, she would protect mankind alongside with plantkind. After all, Harley was part of humanity, so there had to be something worth saving in the species. Personality Ivy was abused when she was younger leading to her vendetta of seducing and ultimately betraying and hurting men just as she was seduced and hurt. In time this need for vendetta lessens and she moves on deeper meaning. She becomes a worldly-wise seductress, and a painfully naive child, all at the same time. Ivy can seem complex and ambivalent, or the simplest creature in the world, depending on one's frame of reference. By human standards, she is a ruthless killer ("of the second order," she might add, "I kill only killers"). By denying all that is human inside her, she was able to negate the part of her she perceives as weak, as vulnerable, naive. Ivy sees herself as a vigilante who protects those who are afforded the least protection by the law (plants). The main difference between Ivy and the other vigilantes is that she is not a faunal chauvinist; to her, "first blood" also includes sap and woe to those who spill it! Pamela was a withdrawn girl, despite her unearthly beauty, and her first love was the same man who seduced, drugged and almost killed Pamela, turning her into Poison Ivy. Her second boyfriend was killed by Ivy's developing powers. These tragedies made Pamela have thing for the damaged and victimized. The planet, polluted and ignored by it's children, Harley's abusive and psychotically relationship with Joker, a weeping child or a crippled dog, all are under Pamela's ever-growing compassion's care. She won't attack or hurt people she perceives as such, and will help if she can, even if it costs her life. At the same time she will protect the disfranchised and innocent, Ivy will always care for them if she can, making her somewhat of an unsung heroine. Pamela Lillian Isley was an intelligent, incredibly talented and beautiful woman, but Poison Ivy is what remains after all the abuse and heartbreaking. Whenever someone hurts those under her protection Pamela can feel the blinding rage creeping behind her eyes, and those thoughts of how easy it would be to kill the abuser. And yet, she is just now fighting those feelings off, hard as it might be. It gets hard and sometimes Pamela wishes to just be a villain again, but as she progresses in her new path, more and more people depend on her sanity, no matter how hard it might be to resist the urge to reap the bad seeds away. Logs *2013-03-31 - Getting the Band Back Together - Deadpool and Harley arrive to stop a break-in at a museum... but Harley's best friend Poison Ivy is one of the culprits! *2016-07-31 - Marshmallow Hell - Laura shows up in Gotham in time to help Nightwing deal with Mighty Endowed, and then... Category:DC Feature Category:DC Hero Category:New York City Category:DC Taken